Cinxia

Over the weekend I finished Cinxia. I am glad to have it done. The slip stitch collar and cuffs were so fun to knit. I love the finished product. However, I did not enjoy most of the process. A few complaints:

1. Twisted Stockinette. I'm a tight knitter to start with. Throw in the twists (knitting through the back of each knit stitch) and it became an effort to get my needle through the stitches. This is probably more my problem than the pattern's -- and the end result is great -- but it took much of the fun out of it.

2. Yoke. This is the first sweater I've knit in the round. Generally it was great knitting circularly rather than back and forth. And I certainly appreciated not having to sew seams. However, when the sleeves join the body of the sweater, the circular knitting has to make a tight turn to incorporate the curve of the sleeves. This curve was shorter than the length of my needles, which meant I needed to use a third needle to slip each stitch off my left needle and knit it to the right. There simply wasn't enough give in the needles or the yarn to knit directly from one to the other. Fortunately this eased as the yoke grew and by the time I had a couple inches of yoke I could go directly from one needle to the other.

Again, however, the finished project looks just as I'd hoped. And despite my fears as I finished it, it fits! It was definitely a little tight across the yoke. When I blocked it, I stretched the top out a little more than I otherwise would. For the first time in my blocking history, blocking actually made a noticable difference in the fit of the finished item.



And now the details:

Pattern: Cinxia from Fall 2005 Knitty

Yarn: Rowan DK Tweed, color 864 (8 hanks); I got the yarn for 50% off (but have forgotten how much the total was) . The color is best represented by the photo at the top of this post somewhere between a terra cotta and dusty rose

Needles: Several different lengths of size 8 circulars

Notes: I made the sleeves about an inch longer than the pattern called for. This is a standard modification for me as I am long limbed. I also had to convert all the measurements to accomodate my tighter gauge. I had was working about 1.1 times tighter than the pattern called for. I'm especially pleased that the calculations worked!